Report: Sony to delay Horizon Forbidden West to early 2022

Those wanting to take up Aloy’s bow in the much-anticipated sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn will apparently have to wait a bit longer.

Horizon Forbidden West, the upcoming follow-up to the popular open-world adventure from Guerrilla Games and Sony Interactive Entertainment, has reportedly been delayed to the first quarter of 2022. The delay was first reported by Bloomberg News after video game reporter Jeff Grubb discussed the rumor on a Giant Bomb podcast. The game was previously scheduled to come to the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 for the 2021 holiday season.

The delay doesn’t come as a huge surprise. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the production timelines for many major games. The God of War sequel, which is also being published by Sony, had its release date pushed back to 2022. This past June, in an interview for the Official PlayStation Podcast, Herman Hulst, head of PlayStation Studios, said the Horizon Forbidden West team may or may not hit the planned timeframe.

Developer Guerrilla Games showed off 14 minutes of gameplay from the game as part of a State of Play event in May, and it looked stunning. The new footage showed Aloy encountering a tribe of raiders who had captured her friend Erend. The gameplay also showed the hunter riding one of the mechanized beasts of her world to fight off another machine-like behemoth.

We’ve reached out to Sony for further comment on the reported delay but did not receive an immediate response.